


But We Lost It

by frubeto



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, maybe? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frubeto/pseuds/frubeto
Summary: After Pauls personality... changes, he and Hugh need to talk. Set between 1x05 and 1x09.Inspired by the song from Pinks new album.





	But We Lost It

**Author's Note:**

> this did not want to be written
> 
> also, i feel I have to mention I'm completely oblivious to anything that has been happening in the second part of the season

 

Ever since that first day when Paul stepped into the spore drive, he had been different. 

There was of course the obvious change in his mood that everyone got to witness, but it didn’t stop there. There were tiny little things that only Hugh noticed. Like how he took to saying his own name when talking to himself, or his sudden craving for vulcan pancakes in the mornings. 

Hugh was amused by those, mostly. If Paul wanted to start his day with the most bland food ever created, so be it. There was no harm to it. What worried him more were the more drastic behavioral changes.

For one, it seemed like the word tired was erased from his vocabulary. He was hard to get away from work on a good day, and Hugh was used to that, but usually he would come home at some point, and they would go to bed, and talk a little, both exhausted, but happy to end the day in each others arms. He missed those quiet moments with Paul.

Now if he wasn’t sleeping he was in a constant state of excitement, pulling energy from god knows where, doing this or that and, sure, it wasn’t at all out of character for him, but not quite to this extent.

And that was just the thing, Hugh thought, the  _extent_ . Paul didn’t exactly change, in fact if you took away his newfound beaming-ray-of-sunshine-approach to life, he did the same things he always did, only… slightly off. Some quirks of his personality became more prominent while others were subdued, resulting in a weirdly shifted character, like someone moved all your furniture a few centimeters and you can’t put your finger on how it should be.

Hugh had hoped that all of this would be temporary, and Paul would return to his normal bad behavior that he was used to and knew how to handle. But with the continued exposure to the spores, this seemed unlikely.

 

“Am I free to go now, dear doctor?”

 

He looked up to Paul sitting on the biobed in front of him.

This was another thing that bothered him. He was way more affectionate now, both in private and public, and while it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, Hugh did find himself unprepared to deal with that. He nodded softly, and Paul smiled, saying something about seeing him later and took his leave. Hugh closed his eyes.

 

Shortly after he was out the door – and long before Hugh’s thoughts stopped racing – someone entered, and he opened his eyes and straightened his posture at the presence of his superior officer.

Ephrix had stopped a few steps into the room, apparently only to look knowingly at him, then she remembered what she came for and went over to one of the cupboards.

 

“Have you talked to him yet?” she asked, and Hugh sighed. He wanted to play dumb, but really he knew that no matter how much they tried to keep personal and professional life apart, they could never be subtle enough that she wouldn’t see right through them.

 

By now she had found what she wanted and turned back around to face him, and his lack of response probably told her everything she needed. She smiled sadly.

 

“If you think time will make everything better, I can tell you it won’t.”

 

“I know.”

 

 

-

 

 

Tilly stopped at the entrance to the mess hall to catch her breath. She was to call Lt Stamets back from his lunch break and while his mood had been noticeably improved by the spore drive, she still had no desire to get on his bad side. She was out of luck though, when she spotted him sitting with no less than Dr Culber at one end of the room. The one time this happened and it just had to be their lunch date. Great.

At least their conversation – from what she could make out – had to do with Mudd and the recent time loops, and nothing personal, so she gathered her courage and approached them.

 

“Lieutenant?”

 

They looked up at her expectantly and she gripped the PADD she was holding tighter.

 

“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt. It’s just that… Burnham found something. And she said it was important. And I know you’ve just started your break and there’s probably a million things you’d rather be doing but it’s kinda urgent? We wanted you to take a look at it. Sorry if this is-”

 

“It’s fine,” Stamets interrupted her before she could talk herself into more trouble than necessary. He was already out of his chair, grabbed his tray holding an almost untouched dish on it and muttered, “I was just leaving, anyway,” before making his way to the recycling station. When he returned, it was only to grab the PADD from her without sparing so much as another glance at either her or Dr Culber, and was already engrossed in the data before he was out of sight.

That was odd.

She turned back to Culber, who was still watching the corner behind which Stamets had just disappeared, and began to worry.

  
“Is everything okay?” she asked, only realizing belatedly that it might be inappropriate. But if she was out of line, Culber would probably just point it out, or dismiss her. Instead, he said,

 

“I don’t know.” And for his standards, it almost sounded emotional.

  
“Shit. Are you two- Is this-”

 

This time, he did glare at her, and she backpedaled immediately.

 

“I’m sorry, that’s. None of my business. I didn’t mean to- I should. Just get back to engineering. Sorry. Unless you wanna talk, that is. I’m good at that. I mean listening. Obviously. I’m a good listener.”

 

She laughed nervously, and was grateful when Culber finally spoke again.

  
“Thank you, Cadet.” He smiled tightly and she was unsure of it’s meaning. “But I’m okay. You should go.”

 

“Right.” She nodded, and turned on her heels to get back to work.

 

 

-

 

 

Later that day, Hugh returned from his shift feeling drained. He hated being on call after he’d already been on alpha, because most of the time it only meant pulling a double shift. There were always enough sparring accidents, and first to second degree burns, and mysterious alleged slipping incidents to keep him entertained (he had the distinct impression that there was some kind of weekly private party going on, to make his life this little bit harder) and now he just wanted to get under the shower and into bed.

 

But when he entered their quarters and saw Paul sitting at their table, uselessly stirring a tea, he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He had clearly been waiting for him, and Paul didn’t even drink tea, so Hugh suspected he merely wanted to have something to hold onto for what was to come.

 

“Tilly thinks we’re having a lovers’ quarrel.”

 

Ah.

He finished returning his boots and jacket to their respective places before turning to look at Paul. This could go one of two ways, and he decided to take the direct approach.

 

“Is she right?”

 

“I think we’re about to find out.”

 

The intended  _we need to talk_ got across clearly and Hugh sighed. As much as he would prefer to put this off until at least after his shower, if not tomorrow, he knew they already delayed this far too much and needed to seize the opportunity. So he took the chair opposite Paul.

 

“I’m sorry about earlier. You saved all of us and I can’t begin to imagine what you went through. I have no right to criticize the way you did it.”

 

“That’s not-” Paul shook his head, and the hurt look Hugh had seen at lunch returned. “Do you want to know why I didn’t come to you in the loops?”

 

He nodded cautiously and Paul took a deep breath before calmly saying,

 

“You don’t trust me.”

 

The accusation came as a surprise and Paul apparently took it for outrage.

 

“Don’t try to deny it, it’s true. The last few week you’ve been treating me like I’m insane. And, granted, I might not have been my usual miserable self, but-” 

 

He stopped, then looked down into his tea and continued much quieter, 

 

“I lived through the same 30 minutes, over and over, I experienced the destruction of this ship, along with everyone on it, knowing that I was the only one able to stop it and if I couldn’t, Mudd would get his way eventually. And the one thing I needed was someone to believe me, instantly. Someone who trusts me unconditionally, who could help me. And I thought that would be you.”

 

There were tears starting to pool in his eyes and he swallowed hard, and Hugh could see that he had only planned this conversation this far, because the calm and collected tone went out the window when he looked right back at him.

 

“I did come to you, in the beginning. The first few loops after I realized what was happening I explained all of it to you. And you know what happened? Every time, without fail? I ended up in sickbay. Wasting another loop. Because you thought I was hallucinating or _whatever_.”

 

He pushed himself away from the table to stand, having started to wildly gesticulate with his hands.

 

“I had to go to Burnham instead. And she believed me, with her logic and everything. The first try. And we managed to work together _over several loops_. And I was grateful for her, happy that I was finally making progress but it _hurt_ , Hugh.”

 

Not even trying to conceal the tears that were now occasionally running down his cheeks, he closed his eyes, and Hugh felt like shit for thinking he’d been the one left out.

 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” he whispered and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say.

 

“It was you! You don’t remember it, but that doesn’t change the fact. If this were to happen again, you’d still do the same. You-”

 

An odd note escaped from Paul and he abandoned the sentence, knowing he couldn’t continue without his voice breaking.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Hugh couldn’t think of anything better so say, still overtaken by the amount of new information. It was difficult to truly grasp the fact that while he could only remember that one day, Paul had spent an eternity in different versions of it. 

 

But if he was honest with himself now, Paul was right. Were he to come to him with something like this, he’d probably still suspect a medical cause first. It was only logical, considering his recent history and the probability of an actual time anomaly. And he was a doctor after all. He worried, naturally.

 

“We’re in the middle of a war,” Paul said, apropos of nothing, “Literally at the center of an intergalactic war against the most violent alien species known to humankind and I’m a mycologist!”

 

His fingers ran through his hair almost on their own initiative.

 

“And there’s all of this… this stuff in my head and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but don’t think that this doesn’t also scare the hell out of me.”

 

Hugh finally realized where Paul was going with this when he heard  _the tone_ . The one that meant he was only seconds away from full on sobbing. He hated that tone, and immediately got up without thinking.

 

“...and I just wish you’d be there for me so I don’t have to face this alone because I don’t know how to, I can’t do this without you.”

 

Barely managing to finish the sentence, he had to lean on the counter behind him to keep his balance while his body shook. 

 

It hurt to see him like this. It always hurt when Paul cried, if because of an argument between them or something else, but this was an exceptional level and Hugh never thought he would be the reason for it. 

 

“Paul...”

 

It very nearly shattered his heart, and he wanted nothing more that to hold him close and tell him that h e was t here for him and always will be and he needn’t worry about anything – but he wasn’t sure if his touch would be welcome, and he knew the words wouldn’t. Not now.

So he was left only with watching uselessly as the love of his life stood before him, desperately trying to get his breathing under control.

 

“Please don’t leave” Paul managed gaspingly, and this time Hugh couldn’t help but reach for his cheek, horrified at the thought.

 

“Honey, I’m not leaving you,” he intoned, and he could see Paul lean into the touch, seeking comfort, and finding enough to calm his breathing, but apparently not his mind.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Hugh only looked at him blankly as Paul gently nudged his hand away.

 

“Because, to be honest, right now I don’t feel like this is… what it should be. I come home to you and I… I don’t feel… well, _home_.”

 

He shook his head, searching for more words to explain what he meant, but he needn’t have bothered, because Hugh understood perfectly. He sighed, and let Paul continue.

 

“Take that time in the turbo lift. Or… at the party! We were there together, but we could as well have been strangers. You kept dodging me, it felt like you were somewhere else mentally – which is ironic, considering – and when you kissed me I didn’t feel… I didn’t feel much, to be honest, and that’s new.”

 

Looking back at it now, Hugh had to admit he had behaved like an idiot, thinking Paul wouldn’t notice anyway. And that was part of the problem, wasn’t it?

 

“You didn’t even tell me off for my stupid jokes. In fact I didn’t get any reaction from you. And I don’t think I’ve had a proper conversation with you since, it’s like I’m invisible to you.”

 

He gasped, his expression making a U-turn towards intrigued.

 

“Please say I’m not invisible.”

 

“Paul...” Hugh said warningly, but he didn’t listen.

 

“...with my altered DNA and frequent visits to the fungus realm, who knows if...”

 

“Paul, listen, please, I-”

 

“...actually switching between planes of existence...”

 

He took a deep breath. From the first day they met he had known that Paul was easily distracted. That he would sometimes get so caught up in his own train of thought that he forgets about the ongoing conversation, and while he used to find it endearing, this tendency to ramble had definitely, massively increased in the last time and it was fair to say that it was driving him nuts.

 

“…which would allow the light to pass through...”

 

“Would you listen to me!”

 

It came out louder and harsher than he intended and he immediately took a step back.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

He let himself fall back on one of the chairs and burrowed his head in his hands. He hadn’t meant to get loud, it didn’t help anyone. He wasn’t even angry, just frustrated, with the whole situation, and he couldn’t let that out on Paul.

He repeated his apology, which finally jolted Paul back into reality.

 

“No,” he said, as he took the chair opposite Hugh, “Don’t be.”

 

Drawing his eyebrows together in confusion, he looked up at Paul, who explained,

 

“You’ve been nothing but understanding and patient and considerate and kind with me since all of this started and to be honest, I am sick of it. Please yell at me. Tell me what I did wrong.”

 

“You did nothing wrong,” he said immediately, and what followed was a long silence, because Paul apparently didn’t let that count as an answer.

 

“Sometimes I just-” _I want the man back I fell in love with,_ he thought, knowing how cliché it sounded. But in a way, it was correct. And for his tired and unprepared brain, that clearly was enough, because he heard himself say it anyway. 

 

“Sorry. That was horrible.”

 

Paul only stared at him.

 

“Yes.”

 

There was a bluntness in it that he hadn’t heard in a while and Hugh allowed himself a small smile at the familiarity of it.

 

“What I mean is I want things to be like they used to be. I know you haven’t changed-”

 

He paused to give Paul the time to raise his eyebrows incredulously, just like he expected. It looked ridiculous, with his eyes all red and puffy.

 

“You haven’t. I know you. This has always been part of you.”

  
“Then what’s the problem?”

 

“You said you don’t feel home, and that’s… that’s mutual, I-”

 

Another thought crossed his mind and he started over.

  
“You know it’s like in that old terrible movie where the guy gets replaced by an alien who impersonates him and he’s doing a pretty good job, but there’s some tiny little details he can’t get right?”

 

“I can assure you that I am not an alien,” Paul said, matter-of-fact-ly, but Hugh knew him well enough to see the smile that was fighting its way to the surface, and that was all he wanted.

 

“I know. But it’s confusing me, and I… I’ve stopped looking forward to seeing you. I’m anxious, because I can’t be sure how you’ll react, what mood you’re in… that’s why I’ve been so careful around you.”

 

Paul sighed and seemed to visibly deflate with it.

 

“I’ll try to stop,” Hugh promised, and Paul nodded, but he was already preoccupied with his own thoughts, pulling his mug back towards him that had ended up in front of Hugh after they swapped places.

 

“What are we gonna do now?” he whispered, frowning into the tea as if afraid of the answer. 

 

It wasn’t uncommon for him to ask Hugh for guidance during difficult times in their relationship, and often he would gladly lead the process of problem-solving, but this time, he had nothing to offer.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

This wasn’t like anything they had ever encountered before, there was no fight, no clear points to discuss, no one was mad at the other – they couldn’t even pin down the problem, how were they supposed to find a solution?

 

The full severity of the situation came back to him and  he shook his head as the familiar tingling in his nose started and the hotness behind his eyes forced him to blink back tears.

 

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he repeated, voice unsteady.

 

Paul immediately took hold of his hand across the table and he squeezed it once, to let him know he appreciated the gesture, and under normal circumstances he’d be grateful, surprised even, at his attentiveness, but right now it only made matters worse. It made him uncomfortable, and knowing that it shouldn’t made him feel guilty. So he carefully pulled his hand away, and then got up as he realized he wouldn’t be able to look at Paul’s hurt expression.

 

He was shaking slightly, and he crossed his arms to hide it, facing away from Paul to let the tears fall. He stood there for a long moment, hearing  a resigned  sigh from behind him.

 

He had barely regained his composure when Paul suddenly said,

 

“I wish you could see it,” quietly, almost to himself. 

 

And when Hugh turned back around to look at him questioningly, he saw fresh trails of tears had appeared on his cheeks, too.

 

“Everything, it’s...”

 

He got that look in his eyes that he always had when talking about his interaction with the mycelium network, but this time it was mixed with a great deal of mournfulness. This was one of the things that stood between them, making Hugh feel like he was farther than ever from knowing Paul’s mind, but only then did he realize that knowing you will never get to experience something might not hurt as much as knowing you can’t  _share it_ .

 

He gave him a sympathetic look and they let the silence stretch, unable to think of anything left to say, each of them simultaneously hoping and fearing the other will act first, experiencing the overlooming fear that this might not be fixed like a thick mist in the room that made it hard to breathe.

 

Eventually, Paul nodded to himself and stood up, taking his mug with him. Hugh watched him and instinctively reached for it to return it to the replicator behind him while Paul disappeared to the bathroom. Clearly one of the reasons he didn’t like tea. 

 

When he returned, Hugh hadn’t moved.

  
“Do you want me to go?” he asked.

 

It would be easy for him to find a quiet place in sickbay, if Paul wanted to be alone. During busy times, medical staff were known to catch naps directly on-site so they could be back faster in case of an emergency. Surely he’d manage to commandeer a cot for himself. If he’d be able to sleep though, was a wholly different question.

 

“No,” Paul answered, and Hugh felt oddly relieved, until “I want you to hold me and tell me that we’re good and that everything’s fine.” He sighed. “And I want to believe it.”

 

Hugh nodded and let Paul push past him and into their bedroom. When he followed him, he was already on his way out again, his uniform jacket now clutched in his hand.

 

“I’ll be down in engineering.”

 

“Okay.”

 

But Hugh didn’t move out of the way and Paul stopped in front of him. He paused for a moment, just looking at him, then sighed and placed his free hand on his cheek.

 

“I love you,” Hugh reminded him, promising that he’ll do anything possible to make this work again. That they would find a way, like they have before. Something they both desperately wanted to be true.

 

Paul smiled sadly, leaned in for a small kiss, and answered in kind, 

 

“I love you, too,”

 

and left.

 

**Author's Note:**

> CMO Ephrix is an OC borrowed from sleepymccoy (go check out her stuff she's amazing). Thank you again. She will stay CMO in my head unless Discovery manages to introduce someone even cooler.
> 
> UPDATE: The line "I wish you could see it." is still haunting me in my dreams. Not like this. NOT LIKE THIS!


End file.
